Nick Daicos joins the exclusive one-name club after claiming first Brownlow Medal

It can be the first name - LeBron, Serena, Kobe - or second - Messi, Ronaldo - but at some point it becomes a thing.

Nick Daicos became Nick on Monday night.

He finally won a Brownlow Medal which in a way solidified how dominant he has been in just five years of AFL football.

Second twice - you could mount a good argument he was stiff on both occasions - and third once (in his second year) is nothing short of extraordinary.

And he’s only 23.

What we all sat through for three hours on Monday night, is likely to be repeated a few times over across the next decade. Remarkably Nick polled in 18 of the 22 games he played in.

Much of the interest at this year’s count was whether Nick could raise the bat at the half-century. He came up short by three but 47 incredible votes was a new Brownlow record.

At least he’s left something for next year’s count.

Nick made a mess of the running sheet for Ch 7 given he was declared the winner at 10.25pm at the end of Round 21.

“He can’t be caught” host Hamish McLachlan declared.

AFL CEO Andrew Dillon did his best speed-reading over the final three rounds to keep the crowd interested but they’d drifted into chatting amongst themselves about being inside the room when history was made.

To McLachlan’s credit earlier he didn’t try to pretend the night was going to go any other way when he started the evening.

As he introduced the Ch 7 coverage, the night’s host basically said the evening was all about Nick.

Thirty minutes later when Nick had already reeled off three votes in each of his first three games, the microphone was placed in front of Marcus Bontempelli.

As usual he spoke brilliantly even though he knew once again another spectacular individual season was going to go unrewarded.

But this time the Bont didn’t have to wait until the death to realise he wouldn’t be giving a speech, he knew by 8.30pm.

“He’s changing the game to a sense,” Bontempelli said about Nick before adding. “It’s great marvelling at the best, he is currently the best.”

At least the Bont had his moment when in Round 15 he scored three votes against St Kilda which brought him level with Nick on 23 votes.

Then guess what happened? Nick got another three against Port Adelaide and off he went to set a world record of stringing together six consecutive three-vote games.

Collingwood great Scott Pendlebury was then interviewed and asked about Nick. He repeated what they say about all of the greats in sport: “He hates losing”.

Pendles then suggested he had Nick’s handle at table tennis. If it wasn’t the game’s record holder saying that, we’d probably call BS because surely Nick doesn’t lose anything.

Behind Nick there was some interesting trends.

If Zak Butters didn’t get injured late in the year this count would have been a lot more interesting.

Nick has saved the world from a Bailey Smith acceptance speech - he finished second on which would most likely have to be edited heavily before going to air on Ch 7.

If North gets a coach who can get them winning more games then Harry Sheezel is going to win a Charlie at some stage.

When Will Ashcroft gets sick of winning Norm Smith Medals, he’ll win the Brownlow before he’s done.

Melbourne captain Max Gawn finally - actually it deserves capital letters FINALLY - got noticed by the umps, finishing fourth on 28 votes.

And Carlton gun Sam Walsh should forget about getting Brownlow votes until Patrick Cripps retires as his skipper is one of the all-time favourite of the men in white or flouro yellow.

But this night was always going to be about Nick and to a lesser degree his father Peter. No-one wanted to think about what might happen if somehow things went pear-shaped then how the Collingwood legend would react about his son’s misfortune.

Thankfully, that was avoided. Let’s hope the Copeland Trophy voters get it right this year. Surely.

Originally published as Nick Daicos joins the exclusive one-name club after claiming first Brownlow Medal